The world's population is approx 6.8 billion. Only 1.2 billion of those people live in "developed countries". The other 6.6 billion people live is less developed countries, which I assume means they have a less than desirable water supply in most cases. In a lot of cultures "tea" is used to flavour the water for more pleasant drinking. In Africa they commonly use rooibos in their drinking water.So looking at the population demographics... I would say the statement "tea (tea not necessarily being the tea plant) is the second most consumed beverage in the world" is valid.

"In the U.S. they drink soda," This is an inaccurate and simplistic statement. While soda is widely consumed, when I look down the cold beverage (non-alc) aisle of my local grocer, I see 1/2 of it is tea. One long aisle is reserved for tea and coffee.

"Europeans = wine," really? even for breakfast? Tea time? Between meals? What about Germany and Belgium, beer capitols of Europe? Last I heard, they had plenty of tea and coffee there too.

"Africa = probably just water" not even going to touch that.

"South America = definitely not tea" certainly they consume large amounts of coffee, but S.A. is also the home to Maté, which is widely consumed.

"India = probably cow and goat's milk," Um... have you not heard of Assam, Ceylon and Darjeeling? India is the largest producer and consumer of black tea in the world!

"aussie = beer, wine" and Honeybush tea.

But then, I suppose we all fall victim once in awhile to our own cultural imperialism.

With 4 billion Chinese what do you expect.On the other hand 4 billion Chinese cant be wrong.I'm just guessing on 4 billion PS We needed a Chinese Smiley (this is TeaChat for gods sake) Smiley in tea. will make a good avatar.

Last edited by nonc_ron on Aug 21st, '09, 07:07, edited 7 times in total.

Before canned drinks or bottled water, boiled water for coffee and tea was/is more sanitary than the standard public supply wells in urban settings, due to river and groundwater contamination from sewerage.

Stepwise improvements in public water quality in major cities in the West that began in the 1700-1800s in Europe and later 1800s in the US had an enormous impact on improving life expectancy from birth year.

I hope you were joking man... I'd like to add to the previous replies that in Africa at least in kenya and morocco tea is the official drink. I've always thought that If the world had twice as much tea drinkers there wouldn't be half the problems.

Once someone mentioned that US is one of the largest tea consuming country in the world. It may be true. Don't be surprised. If you hear those beverage merchants talking about tea - in their mind, tea is nothing but raw material for bottled tea (sweet soft drinks).

Being from Eastern N.C I can tell you that there is massive amounts of tea being consumed! I always joke that sweet tea was in my bottle as a baby. Every meal at home and every meal at restaurants and all during the day was sweet tea. Lipton and Red Rose have gotten very wealthy from the south?

Keep in mind the numbers that we're talking about here. Even if everyone in the United States drank tea every day it would still be a footnote against the amount of tea drunk in China and India, not to mention Africa taken as a whole and all the other smaller countries where tea drinking is a standard part of daily life. (Turkey springs to mind, as does Japan.)

The US population is only around 300 million, with a moderate proportion of tea drinkers. India and China each have over a billion people, and they have a much higher level of tea drinking.

To be honest, I think that the UK alone could probably give the US a run for its money when it comes to tea drinking.